The Jones'

Keeping up with them could sure be an exhausting endeavor. Lucky for us I rarely try.

It is tempting though. These grown-ups, the same age as I am, making similar incomes...but man, do they have some nice stuff. Matching furniture, beautiful decorations, new homes, nice vehicles, .... lots of stuff.

We don't have most of that stuff, and mostly it doesn't bother me. Until I think about inviting the Jones' over and I think our world might scare them. The only furniture I have actually purchased are a love seat and couch and a mattress....everything else is some form of hand-me-down. Without all that we have inherited from grandparents...we would be mostly furnitureless.

I love our antiques, they are mostly functional.

With 3 cats, a dog, 2 young boys...having anything really nice seems like a pretty futile effort.

So then I ask where o where does the money go, if not to an immaculately decorated home with an lcd tv , nice hardwood floors,etc......

I think it goes mostly toward buying organic food and paying tuition at the Montessori school...not to mention the ridiculously huge mortgage we carry as a result of buying at the tail end of the boom.

So Jones' we love ya, and we might like to invite you over but you will have to excuse the cat hair that gets on your cloths, the mis-matched furniture, the scratched wood floors...and my mom and step-dad living in half of our house.

I think someone should make a sitcom about this situation. Although it would probably bore most of you to death.

Whatcho lookin at???

Money Comes and Goes

Oh a big week at our house. Top of the list are:

a) new mini-van
b) Jared's b-day
c) Arden's b-day
d) Arden swallowing a penny
e) Baker's first school report

After much ado and on-going expression of my OCD tendencies toward over-researching and not being able to shut off my brain...we finally took the dive and bought a mini-van. Alas, it would have been more fun to purchase just about any other kind of vehicle...but we are in the practical phase of life with 2 kids and a big dog and lots of shit to haul around. Speaking of shit....

Arden swallowed a penny. We are only one bowel movement into the search so far. Jared had the honor of searching the first bm with a chopstick...and he even got to do that on his birthday. Happy birthday Jared! It was quite a scare for Arden and I think he may have learned his lesson about putting things in his mouth...although at dinner last night he did lick the top of the soy sauce bottle at the restaurant. I asked him why he had the penny in his mouth, to which he responded - "It was a hay penny, and I just forgot the rule about not putting hay penny's in my mouth."
UPDATE: The penny has been recovered, as of about 9 pm last evening.

My big guy Baker...he wrote a report on his Halloween hero..Thomas Edison. His report he wrote in perfect cursive, accompanied by a visual he created from a box and light bulb, and then he delivered his report verbally to his class and all of their guests. I am so proud of him and he really seemed to love the experience. Funny part is that he could have picked anyone he wanted to do the report on....some kids picked family members, their dad, etc....He is really growing up fast.

Halloween was fun this year. Both boys dressed up as Ninjas - which I am convinced was mostly because they wanted the plastic swords. Trick or Treating was fun and we have the candy to prove it. Now Jared and I have a good bribery tool to enforce good (just better) behavior.

Pics to be posted soon....I am really behind on that.